Quoting from Daniel Strange’s chapter, Slain for the World, in From Heaven He Came and Sought Her: Definite Atonement in Historical, Biblical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspective
Far from dampening the motivation to missions, definite atonement provides great confidence for Christian mission. The message we proclaim is not that of a gospel offer which construes the atonement as providing merely the possibility of salvation or the opportunity of salvation, for “it is not the opportunity of salvation that is offered; it is salvation. And it is salvation because Christ is offered and Christ does not invite us to mere opportunity but to himself.”1 Moreover, in the spirit of the Lord’s words to Paul—“I have many in this city who are my people” (Acts 18:10)—we are confident in the unity of the triune God’s sovereign economy of salvation, for we know that wherever we proclaim the gospel, God’s Spirit has gone before, relating to all personally through the ever-present revelation of himself both externally in creation and history and internally in the imago Dei. While this revelation is both sinfully suppressed and substituted, it is never totally erased, so that all know God and are “without excuse.” But more, in God’s amazing graciousness and mercy, and in a myriad of ways, we are confident that he has been preparing his own people, those for whom Christ died, to receive the gospel message we proclaim, in saving repentance and faith.
Previously posted quotes from this book:
- Someone for Some People
- Death Is the Penalty
- Election Is the Spring
- Election Circumscribes the Atonement
- The Circle of Salvation
- Still Bearing Wounds
- Three Features of Typology
1 Original footnote: “John Murray, ‘The Atonement and the Free Offer of the Gospel,’ in Collected Writings of John Murray. Volume 1: The Claims of Truth (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1976), 83.”